Back home

Well its been a couple of weeks since I've been back and it's like of a surreal feeling. I made it home safe and sound that Saturday, I wasn't home long though. I was home long enough to grab some dinner and and my things and I was off to school for some obligations I have for Student Senate.

Thinking back to this trip I realized that there were many things that were different about it from my experiences in Honduras. I guess it would be naive of me to think that everywhere south of the border is the same. Mexico if feel is more civilized in many ways than Honduras; of course there are a few exceptions here and there.

My living arrangements were also different. In Honduras I stayed in the country in a very Americanized enviorment. In Saltillo we where in a city of over 2 million people. It was good to get a different perspective of mission work in a completely different field. Better yet it was good to get a perspective from a single missionary.

In general, I feel like there was just not enough time to get the full experience of Saltillo and all that mission work involves there. Then again, I would probably feel that way if I spent an entire year there.

Things I wont miss:

• Spicy food and the fact that everything it seemed have peppers on it or in it.
• The fact that whenever I was at a restaurant and asked for "sin cebolla" which means no onions, they still managed to put the onions on it.
• The numerous speed bumps everywhere
• Traveling in Saltillo in general. They simply don't know how to drive. And also the fact that they didn't have one standard place to put a stop sign, you often had to search all for corners to see if you had a stop sign that was directed at you.
• Our frozen pipes.
• The fact that I filled so many wholes and cracks in the walls of the room that I painted that I became "crack crazy."
  

Things I will miss:

• Chrissy's craziness. By this I mean her fun loving attitude and her goofiness. She was lots of fun and I'm so glad I got to get to know her.
• The Pastor's family who I spent a lot of time with.
• The colors of the houses and the decorative iron gates and bars on the windows.
• The warm weather
• The beautiful mountains that surround the city
• The beautiful blue sky and the white puffy clouds
• Getting to try new things, like cactus for dinner
• The adorable kids at the village the mission works with
• The sound of Spanish spoken everywhere
  
• The people.
  

Flight Cancelled

My flight out of Saltillo for today was canceled, currently rescheduled for tomorrow. We were going to change my flight to fly out of Monterrey but they closed the highway because the fog was so think people couldn't see. Guess I'm just meant to stay longer; I'm okay with that. Hopefully the weather stays good here and back home so that I can get home and back to school. Please pray for safe travels and good weather for flying.

Since I get to stay another day then I have time to finish the classroom, yay! Now I can leave knowing my job was complete. I painted a large white rectangle on the wall where the projector will be projected on the wall. We bought some paint that Chrissy is hoping to use to put verses up on the wall. I used that paint to put a border around the "screen" to give it a creative touch.

I'm going to miss being here and the people too. We went out dinner at Applebee's with the Pastors family last night. It made for a late dinner since we didn't leave till about 9 to go out to eat. It's a good thing my flight was canceled because we were up late last night.

It got pretty cold, down to about 23 degrees. They go by Celsius down here so it was actually bellow 0 for them. One interesting thing is all of the pipes that go to the house are outside and since it doesn't freeze too often they don't insulate them. Well, needless to say our pipes froze to the hot water heater so all we had was ice cold water, yay.

Painting is complete

THE PAINTING IS DONE! After two full days of painting and a couple hours of touching up a good floor mopping it is nearly complete. Chrissy would like to put a few little creative touches with Bible verses on the wall and a border around where the projector will show on the wall, but with one day left that is full of things to do, I'm not sure if it will get done. However, I am content with how much I was able to get done.

It is amazing that I was able to get as much done as I was able. There is much to do, places to go and people to see.

This morning Chrissy and I went to the swatters village where the mission is. Chrissy did told a Bible lesson about the lepers that Jesus healed. We also handed out little sandwiches with little croissants, cheese, a small piece of ham, lettus, and tomato along with a glass of milk. This kids were swarming the place and were very rambunctious. Unfortunately, disciplining children is not done very well around her so some of the kids were not well behaved. Then we got more paint, stopped by the church parsonage to drop of an extra heater that we had for the pastors family (We heard a rumor that it suppose to get down to 17 degrees this weekend. Which is bad because the houses down here are not insulated and many people do not have heaters.) After that we went to the school to get some things straightened out, stopped at a place called Super Salads, which was really good, and then I returned home and finish my painting project.

Tomorrow, Thursday, is the first day back to school from Christmas break for the schools here. I will be going with Chrissy to the school where she teaches English. I am in charge of doing the devotions for the little kids, which should be fun. Wish me luck, kids are not my area of expertice.

Over the weekend we noticed that there was some water coming up form the road, and later discovered that a water main broke, conveniently right in front of Chrissy garage. They started jackhammering and drilling on Monday right in front of the house so she wasn't able to park in her garage. Luckily, Chrissy was out and about when they started, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to get out. They worked quick on the project and even into the dark hours of the evening and got it done by today (Wednesday).

Last night we went to a women's meeting and an area church with some ladies from our church. There was this older lady who is so sweet that took me under her wing and directed me as to where to go. She was so sweet.

One more day, can hardly believe it. Still so much we wanted to do before I leave but there is just not enough time.

Fun Times

On Friday Chrissy, Cecia, and Cecia's friend and I went to the movies. We saw Sherlock Holmes. I actually just saw it before I left for my trip, but was willing to see it again. Chrissy is a big Sherlock Holmes fan and was excited to see it; however, the movies was a bit of a disappointment for those avid Holmes fans.



On Saturday we were supposed to spend time in the little swatters community with the children. However, due to the cold only a couple showed up at the end. I had prepared to make bracelets with the kiddies but only made a couple with the ones that came. We also handed out some bread to the kids.



Chrissy has set out to "culture" me. Apparently I have a lot to learn in life, I have discovered this. She is 13 years my elder so I do believe she has had more opportunity to experience these things. She started by showing me the movie Joe Verses the Volcano, an old Tom Hanks movie that was still on VHS if that means anything.



Yesterday was church day. The service started off with singing, and times for people in the congregation to share how God was working in their lives. Followed by more singing and more times of reflection. Then the sermon and offering. Chrissy said that the church here is not very strong, even though it is one of the older churches. We were talking about the three stages of conversion, first is excepting the Lord as your savior, the second is joining in fellowship with a group of believers, and the third is going out back into the world to spread the gospel and your story. She said that though some have been in the church for forty years, they are still stuck in the first phase. Chrissy has only been here in Saltillo for four months and she has discovered there is a lot of work on her hands.



I ask you please to pray for the church, that it will become alive with the Spirit and that it can reach its full potential. That the people will accept Christ in their lives and live a life worthy of his grace. Also, please pray for the Bible Institute. Chrissy and the church are working to start a Bible Institute where people can come and learn more in depth about the Bible and more intensive manner. I see so much potential here, it just takes the Spirit to move and make it all happen.

Yesterday after church we spent the day with the pastors family. They made us hamburgers for lunch. I have discovered that I really like hamburgers with avocados on them. We went down town to to walk around. The pastors son, daughter-in-law, and only grandson where there to visit. The grandson of course was the center of attention. After that we went to a flee market. Oh my goodness, I don't know if I have ever seen so much stuff in my life. It was a park with tents set up everywhere and all kinds of stuff. Pretty much anything you could think of you could find there. I didn't really take the time to look at anything though, I was more focused on not loosing the family; it was really busy and crowded and I didn't want to loose sight of the only people I knew there. After that we returned back tot the house for some enchiladas, rice, and chili pepper potatoes. They really like their peppers down here. That is something that I have had to get used to, being that I don't like spicy things or peppers. Creme helps to ease the spiciness.

Things I have learned:

• When walking on the side walk, watch where you are stepping because it is very uneven. We were walking to church and I said hi to a man that was walking by and wasn't looking where I as going and suddenly I was taking a dive toward the sidewalk. How embarrassing. Luckily only I only ended up getting a little dirty and well, now have a little scrape on my elbow, which is more annoying than anything.


• Te quiero mucho is a common phrase used among friends meaning I love you. I have seen it abbreviated TKM which I thought was strange. Apparently, it is a texting short hand. Whatever makes the ca/k sound gets designated a k. For instance, casa is ksa. Who knew?
  

The Classroom

We are currently working on turning a room into a classroom. It at one time was a kitchen. On Friday we were hoping to start spackeling; however, we discovered that the wall was very dirty and ended up spending the time we were going to do spackeling washing the walls. Then Saturday we spackeled and it also took longer than we thought it would. There are many cracks in the walls and many wholes from where nails were. It is apparent that the walls have been any different colors in the past. There are cracks galore and poor attempts to fill wholes by people to painted in the past. Despite what we have to work with, we are confident that the room will look much better when we are done. Currently the walls are two different colors, whoever painted last must have ran out of paint.

Today is a day for sanding and painting. I'm going to get a head start of this today. Chrissy is out getting her residency paper work figured out and then is off to a pastors meeting. That leaves me to chill back here at the house, do some laundry, catch up on my blogging, and tackle that big project.

New Years

Yesterday was a fun day. Chrissy and I went down town to do some shopping. We parked in a parking lot where we payed a buy to wash her car. It was pretty dirty from the trip to the coast. Chrissy said they can was a car with one bucket of water; in the states we definitely use a whole lot more!

We stopped in little shops looking for yarn so I could make a scarf for the pastors wife. She also took me to the market, which is where I purchased a blanket. Saltillo is the blanket capital of Mexico, so what better place to purchase a blanket. Each section of the market is owned by different people or families. They all invite you into their section and show you all of their merchandise. What to see them unfolded, no problem, before you know it they are parading all different kinds of blankets for you to see, hoping that one or more would catch your eye. We stopped at three vendors, I found a blanket style that I liked, on that said Saltillo and Mexico on it. The only problem was deciding a color, which took a while.

Next we went to the plaza next to the Presidential palace, it is where they Mayor lives. It was really pretty and all decorated for Christmas. They had put white garland on the trees to give it a snow covered look. On our way to the plaza we stopped and got some corn. They take a bag of chips and put corn, cheese, and creme on it (and jalapenos if you choose which I did not) and it's a tasty little treat.

Driving through Saltillo is very interesting, it seems like there are many people that do not know how to drive. Yesterday was especially crazy because it was the last of the month. Here they get paid twice a month, on the 15th and the last day of the month. That was yesterday. The lines to the bank were all really long.

We also stopped at Home Depot to get some Redimix to fill in the holes to the room that we will be painting. Chrissy was debating purchasing a new mail box because her neighbors put firecrackers in the last one, she decided against it for fear that they would repeat their handy work. We also stopped at the HEB, which is a grocery store, it was actually pretty big.

Last night we spent the new year with Chrissy's friend Cecia and her family. Her mother made us some delicious food. We also spent time with the pastor and his family. We were there until about two in the morning. The roads were covered with reminents of firecrackers, some of them still going off. It was kind of like a war zone driving down the street with firecrackers flying in from the side of the streets and Roman candles going off in the center of the street. All this made for a pretty loud night.

Today the plan is to spackle and get the room ready to paint. Also, hoping to see a movie at the theatre. Chrissy wants to she Sherlock Holmes, which is good because I've already seen it and I'll be able to understand what's going on since the movie will be in Spanish.

Things I knew:

• Imported products are more expensive here than they are in the states.

Things I knew but experienced for the first time:

• They eat much later than I am used to. Breakfast at 9 or 10, lunch around 2, and dinner around 8. Last night we ate a full meal at midnight! I was so stuffed, but it was really good.

Things I learned

• The stop lights work in a circle. By that I mean they only give the green light to one side at a time. So when you have the green light you can turn left, because there are not cars coming from the other direction.
• The traffic lights are green, then the green flashes to warn you that yellow is coming, its yellow for a second and then it turns read. The flashing green means you should slow down because they yellow does not last long.

Road trip

Monday we left to travel to a town five hours away, its a town where the pastor at Chrissy's church used to preach and live. We traveled with the pastor, his wife, and daughter. We left here about 10 am and arrived around 4ish. We went to the house of his son's mother-in-law. We met the pastor's son, daughter-in-law, grandson, and extended family. They prepared for us some tomales, which where really yummy.

We later had several visits in homes and one at the church. Chrissy was promoting the new program that the Bible Institute is implementing. We stayed with some of the pastor's family. They were all very nice and hospitable.

We took a detour to the beach, just for fun. It was cold and rainy but still lots of fun. I have never been to ocean/gulf before. It was beautiful, i loved the sound of the waves crashing in. If only it were warm and sunny. We stopped and had some sea food: I had some steemed fish and a shrimp cocktail, which consisted of shrimp in a cup with avacados and cocktail like sauce. The detour added an extra hour on our trip back home, thus it was about a six hour ride back. We got back pretty late. Chrissy drove the whole way and I admire her driving endurance.

Today we went to a ministry that Chrissy is involved with. We sang songs with the children who live in this little swatters community. We sang songs, they colored pictures, and they all got to milk and sweet bread. Later we returned and had a meeting time with the ladies. Two ladies came and we had a Bible lesson. We also did a craft and made place mats.

Tomorrow we plan on painting a room that is going to be a classroom for the Bible Institute. We have some holes in the wall to fill and are going to paint the room tan and put Bible verses on the wall. The floor is a bluish tile that is really difficult to match, but we will find something that works. Also tomorrow is the New Years celebration at the church. I can't wait to see what that entails.

Things I knew:

• Don't drink the water
• Don't flush the toilet paper.
• Beware of spicy food.

Things I already knew but experienced for the first time:

• The when someone enters a room the greet everyone. Ladies shake hands and do the little kiss on the cheek thing.
• Saltillo is cold! It was 65 today and felt much colder. Yet, ít is still warmer than Ohio.

Things I learned:

• There is one gas company throughout Mexico called Pemex. The gas prices stay pretty much the same and only have only fluxuated about 3 pesos in the last three years. (about 12 pesos to the dollar).
• Also, the roads are really interesting in some parts. There is a center yellow line like normal, but there is a dotted white line on the sides. It's kind of like there are one and a half lanes on each side. Some people drive down the middle of the white line. This makes it easier for passing.
• Also, most Mexicans don't have drivers licenses